


Nocturne

by Dizzojay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 08:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dizzojay/pseuds/Dizzojay
Summary: A hunt gone wrong ... how will Dean cope with the longest, most difficult week of his life after an attack by a rare and malign faerie?





	1. Chapter 1

Dean was a deep sleeper, even though he only needed four or five hours a night to function properly.

He was a sleep-talker, a fidgeter and a snorer who would wake up bed-headed and grumpy. Sam never thought he would miss the delight that his sleeping brother could be but now, after watching Dean struggle through his third consecutive sleepless night, he would have given anything to lie awake listening to Dean's wall-shaking snores.

The hunt three days ago had been a strange one.

The Winchesters had ventured into the moonlit forest after a Redcap; a spectacularly malevolent breed of faerie with a penchant for scalping its victims and wearing their scalps as a hat; hence its name. The hunt for the Redcap was somewhat derailed when, halfway into the forest, Dean's flashlight had picked up the ethereal form of a dark figure hiding in the shadowy cleft of a giant tree trunk. The creature had let out a blood-chilling shriek, and the next thing Dean knew, that same dark force had hurled him bodily into a nearby bush.

That was the beginning of the nightmare that he currently found himself living.

It was a Nocturne, Bobby had surmised later on; a faerie of darkness. Extremely rare and very sinister. So rare, in fact, that even with his extensive library of lore, Bobby could only find a handful of references to it.

Nocturnes, it was said, thrived on darkness; they required it to survive. Light was their nemesis. That, he explained, would have been why the thing recoiled and reacted so violently when Dean's flashlight caught it hiding away from the moonlight. Unfortunately, Nocturnes were in possession of a particularly nasty talent; they were known as sleep-stealers. The lore told of their power to deprive a person of sleep to the point that their unfortunate victim lost their mind, and maybe even died.

Based on what he had learned, Bobby had hatched a plan, but he knew the Winchesters weren't going to like it …

xxxxx

"Well, it looks like the only way to fix Dean is to kill this damn thing," Bobby explained over the phone to Sam; "I've been readin' up on them, and the key to killin' them is light," he added.

"Okay," Sam replied, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked back at the armchair in which Dean was slumped, eyes tightly closed as if he was trying to squeeze a precious few minutes sleep out of them; "what's your plan?"

"Well, me an' Rufus, we've collected some halogen lamps which we'll set up in the forest in a circle on a remote switch. We gotta try to lure the damn thing into the circle, then … 'BAM' … we switch the lights on full blast and fry the bastard…"

"Sound plan," Sam nodded down the phone.

"But …" Bobby heaved a deep sigh; "to have a chance of luring it out, we've got to do this at a time when it's most active."

"Yeah," Sam agreed; "Night-time?"

"Not just night-time," Bobby replied; "you went into the woods at night-time, and you said yourself, it was hiding in a shadow."

"Well, yes…" Sam agreed hesitantly.

"It was hiding from the moonlight," Bobby explained; "to catch it at the time when it's most active, we're gonna need to set this up on a night when there ain't hardly any moonlight."

The wheels in Sam's head turned for a moment; "new moon?" He asked.

"That's right," Bobby replied; "but – here's the bitch - the new moon's five days away."

"FIVE…" Sam snapped, instantly checking himself, mindful of Dean trying to rest behind him; "five days?" he hissed; "Dean's gone three days without sleeping already, don't know if he'll last another five days."

"I know, it stinks," Bobby replied apologetically; "but it's the way it's gotta be." He sighed,"look, you only found this thing by accident. To find it on purpose, you're basically searching the whole forest in pitch darkness for something that looks like a black net curtain hiding in the darkest place it can find. It's impossible. We gotta bring it to us."

Sam scraped a hand over his face; "but five more days, Bobby; can a person actually go without sleep for over a week? What'll happen to him?"

"That's why you gotta stay with him Sam, take care of him. He'll need your support. He's got a tough few days ahead."

"What happens if you can't kill it this full moon?" Sam mused in a small voice.

"You're a smart kid," Bobby replied; "you don't need me to answer that." The two men fell silent for a moment. "Anyway, that ain't gonna happen, right?"

Sam nodded silently and looked back to Dean shifting uncomfortably in the huge armchair. "Okay, look, thanks Bobby," he whispered; "I know you'll do your best, just please … help him."

"You know I will son," Bobby murmured regretfully; "Oh, and don't you go wearin' yourself into the ground," he added. "One of you needs to stay compos mentis, so you need to get your sleep, even if Dean can't. You promise me boy?"

Sam swallowed deeply and nodded; "Yeah … yeah, I promise Bobby," he mumbled.

xxxxx

The whole nightmare had begun four days ago on that stupid Redcap hunt. After Dean had disturbed the mysterious creature, the brothers had been too distracted by trying to figure out what it was, and whether it was dangerous (notwithstanding Dean's flying headbutt into the tree), and almost earned themselves a short back and sides courtesy of the Redcap.

After they had finally got the upper hand and ended the fugly faerie asshole, Sam hadn't appreciated Dean's cocky pun about the hunt being 'a close shave'. He knew that Dean's bullshit wasn't fooling anyone, and the older Winchester was just as spooked as him by the dark and sinister entity.

Dean had never been what you might call a ray of sunshine in the mornings, but even by his low standards, Sam had been shocked to see the wreck of his brother sitting in the bunker's kitchen the following morning.

"I didn't sleep a goddamn minute," Dean had snorted around the rim of his coffee cup, his unfocussed, red-rimmed eyes staring miserably through Sam at an indeterminate spot somewhere on the other side of the kitchen.

Sam had known it was serious as, after an unproductive day's research, he'd watched Dean preparing a cup of hot milk, fortified with enough whiskey to anaesthetise a cow, to take to bed with him.

The following morning, again, Sam's brother had emerged from his bedroom as a hollow-eyed, miserable, yawning shell of a man. Sleep had once again totally eluded him, and didn't Sam know it.

Hot milk hadn't worked, alcohol hadn't worked, so Dean had spent the day attempting to elicit exhaustion as a last desperate attempt to grab some shut-eye.

During the day, he'd deep cleaned the bunker's kitchen, washed Baby, given her an oil change and flushed out her radiator, baked some bread, and carried out all or any chores that he could think of, pushing his already fatigued body beyond endurance until he was practically crawling on his hands and knees back to his bedroom. Sam's misgivings that this was probably a really, really bad idea had been, as expected, overlooked and ignored, so he had taken the opportunity to discuss the problem with Bobby.

And now, here they were, day four.

Sam heard the click of Bobby disconnecting the call, and took a deep breath as he tried to imagine how to tell his brother that he had five more days of this unspeakable torment to face.

xxxxx

Dean was slumped in the big chesterfield armchair at one end of the Bunker's great hall. His eyes closed, his head lolling limply to one side. For a brief moment, Sam dared to hope that Dean had managed somehow to catch a few moments sleep, but the rational side of him knew that they couldn't be so lucky. Sam knew his brother well enough to be able to gauge his breathing and could tell when he was sleeping. The rise and fall of Dean's chest now was ragged and sharp; and the giveaway was the crease of tension between his brows.

Sam was about to speak up when Dean saved him the trouble.

"If you're gonna stand there staring at me all day, I'm gonna have to start charging," he grumbled, his broken voice completely devoid of his usual cockiness.

Sam managed a wry smile, as Dean yawned and stretched.

"I was hoping you managed to grab a few minutes sleep," Sam replied quietly.

"Nah," Dean replied glumly, knuckling his still-closed eyes; "was just restin' my eyes. Feel gritty an' sore."

As he lowered his hands, and opened bleary, bloodshot eyes, Sam noticed the displaced tears glistening on his pale cheeks. He chose to ignore them.

xxxxx

I've just spoken to Bobby," Sam began; "squatting down beside Dean's chair; "he's figured out what that thing was and how to kill it."

"Cool," replied Dean flatly; "what do we have to do?"

"WE don't have to do anything," Sam replied bluntly; "Bobby's dealing with it."

Dean looked at him through misty, unfocussed eyes.

"Bobby? Why?"

"Dude, really?" Sam exclaimed; "Do you really think you're up to hunting right now?"

He took Dean's silence as a tacit agreement.

"Look, this thing, it's called a Nocturne," Sam continued; "it's a faerie that lives only in darkness, and it has a particularly nasty magic – it steals sleep."

He waited for the wheels to turn foggily in Dean's head; "So are you saying that this thing is the reason why I can't …"

"Yeah," Sam interjected; "as long as that crappy thing is alive, you won't be able to sleep Dean."

There was a moment's silence and Sam reflected on how slow Dean's reactions were already becoming.

"Well, I hope Bobby can do his stuff soon Sam, otherwise I'm gonna go stark freakin' crazy," Dean replied, his voice cracking as it rose in panic.

Sam swallowed deeply; "Dean, the thing is, Bobby's got to wait until the darkest night so he can to get a shot at catching this thing. That's the new moon," he explained. He paused for a moment, regarding Dean's face looking at him; sincere, frightened, stripped of all bravado.

"The new moon is five days away."

Sam sat back on his haunches and waited for a reaction. He waited for the cursing, the shouting; he waited for the chair to be kicked over, or the wall to be punched.

Instead he got Dean, staring at him, those hooded eyes, sunk deeply into the dark shadows around them, gazing levelly at him.

"The new moon?" Dean whispered; "what's … why…"

Sam pulled in a shuddering breath.

"The new moon dude, Bobby can't catch and kill the Nocturne until the new moon. You're not going to be able to sleep for five more days."

There was a long silence between the two men as that news sunk in.

A single tear that slid down Dean's gaunt, expressionless face was his only response.

xxxxx

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Since the whole truth about the Nocturne had been revealed, Sam had done plenty of research on sleep deprivation; he knew exactly what to expect. Drowsiness, mood swings, impaired memory and concentration, disorientation, hallucinations, temperature fluctuations, loss of appetite … the list was long and depressing.

However, reading about it and actually living through it were two very different things.

In that respect, Bobby's instruction to Sam to make sure he got some sleep sounded logical and easy. Sam totally saw the sense of it; 'one of you needs to stay compos mentis,' Bobby had said, and Sam knew that Bobby had been absolutely right.

But when it came to it, the mere idea of walking away from Dean right now was unthinkable.

It was four days into their ordeal, and not watching Dean pace unsteadily around the bunker, sometimes absent and torpid and other times antsy and full of internal rage which he was no longer capable of articulating, seemed wrong. Not seeing Dean shivering as his body temperature began to diminish, not being there to support him through his descent into disorientation, not suffering alongside him … it felt like a complete abdication of his responsibilities.

"You gotta sleep, Sammy," Dean had begged in one of his more lucid moments; "just 'cause I can't, doesn't mean you've got to deal with this too."

"But Dean," Sam countered; "how the hell can I lay down in a comfortable bed and sleep soundly knowing what you're going through?"

"Sam, Bobby was right; we do need one of us to stay alert until this is all sorted," Dean replied; "if it gets sorted."

"Don't say that Dean, of course it'll get sorted," Sam snapped; "but I can't go to bed, I can't do it."

In the end a compromise was reached. Sam, who could be the most stubborn bitch on Earth according to Dean, would not lay his head on a pillow until Dean's ordeal was over; on that point there was no movement - at all. He would, however, power nap a couple of times a day to make sure he maintained some semblance of sanity for Dean's welfare over the coming days.

And he was really going to need his sanity over those coming days. Dean's moments of lucidity were starting to become shorter and rarer, his ability to communicate becoming more and more compromised.

Now, Dean could barely string a single sentence together. More often than not his sentences were nothing more than single words punctuated by long open-mouthed silences and pleading looks to Sam for help.

Sam was reflecting on that after Dean had struggled helplessly to ask him for a coffee. Worse still, now that Sam had produced the drink, he was having to sit down with Dean and help him work out how to drink it.

A closed door had presented a similar problem, when Dean had approached it and then stopped short, unable to understand the situation. He had stood there forlornly for several minutes until Sam had walked back into the room from the kitchen and opened the door for him. He knew that Dean was on his way to the bathroom, and he really hoped he wouldn't forget what he needed to do in there.

By the fifth day, Dean's eyes were starting to hurt. It was hard for him to focus on the TV, so that was abandoned. Books and newspapers were an impossibility; words, pictures, numbers … they all blurred together, making Dean more frustrated. As the day went on, Sam found himself living in half-light, keeping the bunker illuminated with the lowest, dimmest amount of light necessary in an attempt to make Dean as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

Dean's occasional bursts of anger were becoming fewer and farther between until they stopped altogether. Sam wasn't sure if that was because Dean didn't have the energy to get angry any more, or if he was losing awareness of his plight; but either way, seeing Dean's expressions of emotion, and his belligerence wither away was terrifying. It was like watching the light going out in Dean's eyes.

xxxxx

Dean had taken to wearing Sam's hoodie. Or, that is to say Sam had taken to dressing Dean in his hoodie. At the moment, Dean was nearly always cold, and the hoodie was warm and soft, and Dean seemed to like it. It was also big, too big for Dean, and that meant that Sam could slip his brother into it with the minimum of fuss and interference. But ultimately, it was old, and hadn't been laundered since the last time Sam wore it. Sam had read once that the sense of smell was the deepest and most emotive of all the senses. He hoped his own faint musk ingrained into its worn fabric might comfort Dean and ground him with its security and familiarity.

Dean had spent most of the sixth day sitting in an armchair with his eyes closed, burrowing as far down into the hoodie as he could. With little else to do, Sam had just been sitting opposite him, feeling as useless as a fork in a soup bowl and had eventually tried reading aloud to Dean, anything to break this terrible silence and give them both something to focus on.

He'd picked out one of his favourite books, Lord of the Rings. Sam remembered how the adventures of Frodo and his Hobbit comrades had been a welcome distraction at many difficult and confusing times in his life; he hoped they could do the same for Dean right now.

At first, Dean had seemed to enjoy listening to Sam reading, whether it was the cadence of Sam's voice, or the absorbing words of Mr Tolkein, Sam didn't know, but Dean seemed settled, and had even murmured a soft 'thanks' at one point.

But after a couple of hours, Dean's mood changed. He became agitated, shaking his head and clamping his hands over his ears to indicate to Sam that reading time was at an end.

Fatigue and confusion were the monsters Dean's failing mind was dealing with right now and they were far worse than any of the orcs and goblins lurking in Middle Earth.

xxxxx

It was on the seventh day that the hallucinations started. Rats mainly, and then hellhounds.

Dean spent most of the day burrowed into a corner, his arms curled over his head, keening pitifully like a wounded animal. He was tortured by the sound of the great black beasts scratching at the door; barking and howling, ready to tear his flesh from his bones and drag his shattered carcass to hell.

Sam's constant reassurances that the bunker was warded twenty times over against Hellhounds had fallen on deaf ears. The fact that to get into the bunker, a Hellhound would need to be able to recite latin fluently, paint an array of complicated sigils, be a gifted housebreaker and, basically, not be a hellhound, was beyond Dean's flawed comprehension. All Sam could do was sit in the corner with him repeating his empty reassurances like a despairing mantra.

Now Sam was starting to feel his own exhaustion starting to creep over him. The last seven days, and in particular the last four since his phone call with Bobby which had revealed the truth of the situation, had overwhelmed him far more than he would have imagined. Despite his 'power naps', he had been dragged helplessly along in the slipstream of Dean's suffering. Dean's pain and confusion was his pain and confusion and the nagging fear that this wouldn't all end at the new moon tomorrow was always there, like a shard of ice in the pit of his stomach.

They sat there for hours, two rock solid forms, supporting each other; well aware that one would tumble and fall, both literally and spiritually if the other was taken away.

Sam's ass was uncomfortable and numb, protesting the long hours sitting on the bunker's cold flagstone floor.

He didn't care.

xxxxx

"Say, Rufus, y'idjit," Bobby snorted; "set those lamps up in a smaller circle; the light hasta be unbroken so that this freaky little shit can't escape when we have it corralled."

"Okay, Bobby, keep y'hair on," Rufus retorted; "well, what little you got left anyway, I've brought the lamps in now – I'm gonna test the remote."

"Okay, we need to make sure everything's right now, while it's still light," Bobby muttered, as much for his own benefit as for Rufus'; "once darkness falls, we gotta do everything in the dark. No flashlights, no nothin'. Got it?"

"Hell, Bobby, y'think I'm a goddamned simpleton?" Rufus moaned; "I know what's at stake here."

Bobby lifted his cap and wiped his forehead with a grubby handkerchief.

"I'm sorry Rufus, it's jus' that boy," he sighed; "he ain't slept for eight nights. We can't fail this Rufus, we just can't."

"Look, we got another hour before dusk falls, and we're gonna get this right. Okay?" Bobby nodded, reassured by Rufus' commitment to the task; "between us two ornery old bastards, we got about thirty thousand years of experience, and we ain't gonna get our asses beaten by some fancypants goth faerie. Got it?"

Bobby nodded again, "got it."

"Now," Rufus counted on his fingers as he examined the items on the ground before him; "we got some coal, some rosewater from petals of a rare black rose, and some black cat hair - I got freakin' scratched to hell when I cornered the neighbour's black cat and shaved a stripe off the damn thing. We got wax from a black candle and a hunk of black ryebread; everything we need to attract your common garden-variety nocturne."

"Bobby," he added, pointing to a spot on the ground between them; "you need to sketch out that attraction charm, right here in the dirt, and I'll kick some leaves over it."

"Right, let's do this."

By the time Bobby had finished sketching out the complicated glyphs necessary for the faerie attraction charm, and Rufus had covered them over with the detritus of the forest floor, twilight had begun to descend. Reaching into their respective duffels, Bobby handed Rufus a pair of night-vision goggles, and strapped his own pair onto his head.

The two men settled back under a simple black hide that they had constructed beside the faerie trap and watched patiently as the receding daylight dissolved into impenetrable blackness.

"show time," whispered Rufus, taking a swig from a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, and offering it to his nervous companion.

Bobby took the bottle gratefully.

xxxxx

There wasn't a single bone in Sam's body that didn't ache. He'd lost track of how long he'd been sitting on the floor, cold and hungry and increasingly worried. Beside him, Dean had fallen into a near-catatonic state some hours ago and was a heavy boneless weight leaning in on him, immobile and unresponsive. Dean's face, swathed in the shadows of the unlit bunker was completely without colour. A waxen masque of grey; silent and empty.

Dean's breathing was becoming increasingly shallow, each breath pulled out of him as if breathing itself was now an effort of which he was no longer capable. It was hard for Sam to listen to, but combined with his own crushing fatigue, it was still enough to lull Sam into an unexpected and haunted sleep.

xxxxx

Sam's head snapped up as he awoke with a start. Blinking blearily, he reflected that he must have been snoring; snoring enough to wake himself up. He guessed that he probably wasn't fully awake because he could still hear himself snoring.

Except that, actually, he wasn't.

He looked down to the face burrowed deeply into his shoulder. And realised those breathy snores weren't coming from him.

They were coming from Dean.

Sam could barely contain the joy which threatened to explode from his chest, as he felt Dean shift, sighing softly and burrowing even deeper into Sam's side.

Sam knew at that moment that Bobby and Rufus had delivered.

Once again Bobby had worked his magic. Along with Rufus, he had destroyed the Nocturne and saved his boys. Sam wanted so much to thank him, to hear all about it, but for now, that would have to wait. His first priority was Dean.

Sam knew if they both stayed here on the floor, given the likelihood that Dean was hopefully going to sleep for hours, they'd most likely both end up crippled for life.

Manouevring as carefully as he could, he hooked an arm around Dean's back, and slowly rose to his feet, pulling Dean, still sleeping, upright with him.

He grimaced as stiff limbs and numb muscles protested the move, but Sam gladly ignored them as he carefully hoisted Dean up into his arms and made his way slowly and carefully to Dean's room.

With Dean safely decanted into his bed, Sam worked his boots off of him, and pulled the comforter up over him. His work done, he settled into a chair beside the bed to rest, to finally relax, and to watch Dean sleep.

xxxxx

The next time Sam opened his eyes, he realised that he must have fallen asleep again. His watch showed that he had been asleep for over twelve hours. His back confirmed it. He winced, groaning softly as he brushed limp, greasy hair out of his bleary, sleep-fogged eyes.

That's when he noticed Dean lying in the bed, propped up on one elbow staring at him.

Sam reflected that Dean looked better. Although he no doubt had a lot more recovering to do, twelve hours sleep had worked its healing magic on him.

There was a colour in his cheeks as he looked up at Sam with a smile that reached his eyes, glassy and heavy-lidded as they were. "Hey dude," he murmured, his voice ragged with lack of use; "you should get more sleep – you look like shit."

"Back at you, Sleeping Beauty," Sam grumbled, rising from the chair and stretching the kinks out of his spine with a groan and a jaw-cracking yawn.

"I'm going back to my room to get some proper shut-eye," he snorted; "I can't put up with any more of your snoring!"

xxxxx

end


End file.
